Showing 855 results

Authority record

Obey, André

  • RC0256
  • Person
  • 1892-1975

André Obey was a French dramatist, born 8 May 1892 in Douai. Between 1931 and 1933 he wrote four plays for the Théâtre de Vieux-Colombier, winning the Brieux prize for La bataille de la Marne in 1931. He died on 14 April 1975.

Sonnenschein, Hugo (Sonka)

  • RC0884
  • Person
  • 1889-1953

Hugo Sonnenschein was born in Kyjov in what is now the Czech Republic in 1889. He wrote under the name of Sonka and his first book of poems was published in 1907 while he was a student in Vienna. During the First World War he served on the Balkan front, but was taken into custody for pacifist activities on several occasions. Following the war he turned to politics and founded the Red Guard as well as being active in the communist community, though he was later kicked out of the Communist Party. Die Legende vom weltverkommenen Sonka, was published in 1920, and is considered his major work. In 1943, he and his wife, Rosa, were sent to Auschwitz. He survived, but after the war he was accused of collaborating with the State Police and in 1947 sentenced to a twenty-year sentence. He died in 1953 in Mirov prison.

Front de libération du Québec (FLQ)

  • RC0260
  • Corporate body
  • 1963-1971

The Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) was founded in March 1963 to promote the establishment of an independent Québec. Pierre Vaillières jointed the FLQ in 1965 and provided its philosophical underpinnings. The group used radical tactics, being involved in over 200 bombings between 1963 and 1970. In 1970 the FLQ kidnapped cabinet minister Pierre Laporte and British trade commissioner James Cross. Laporte was later murdered. The FLQ, many of its members in prison, ceased activity in 1971.

Lacey, E. A. (Edward A.)

  • RC0196
  • Person
  • 1938-1995

Edward Lacey was born in Lindsay, Ontario of French-Canadian and Irish descent. After attending separate and public schools in Lindsay, he went to the University of Toronto, winning the Edward Blake scholarship in Modern Languages and Literature and majoring in French and German. He graduated with a B.A. in the fall of 1959 and then moved to Texas to pursue his M.A. in Linguistics and Languages. There he met Randy Wicker (formerly Charlie Hayden), student politician and gay activist, and Byron Black, who remained lifelong friends. He received his M.A. degree in 1961.

Between 1961 and 1983 he worked as a translator or taught English as a second language and literature in Mexico, Trinidad, Brazil, Greece and Thailand. He also worked as a proofreader and editor in Thailand from 1984 to1987. In 1991 he taught English or worked as an editor in Indonesia and Thailand, until an accident in Bangkok permanently disabled him. He died of a heart attack in 1995.

Lacey’s publications include: The Forms of Life (1965), the first gay-identified book of poetry published in Canada; Path of Snow: Poems 1951-73 (1974); and Third World: Travel Poems (1994). His collection of letters entitled A Magic Prison: Letters from Edward Lacey (1995) was edited by David Helwig. Lacey has also translated books from French, Spanish and Portuguese. His own work has appeared in anthologies such as Gay Roots: Twenty Years of Gay Sunshine, An Anthology of Gay History: Sex, Politics & Culture (1991).

Brown, J. Barry

  • RC0081
  • Person
  • 1885-1972

Barry Brown was an Irish book collector.

Harris, Marjorie

  • RC0142
  • Person
  • 1937-

Marjorie Stibbards Harris Batten, freelance writer, editor, and noted Canadian gardening authority, was born in Shaunavon, Saskatchewan, in 1937, the eldest of Bernard and Kay Stibbards ’s three children. Her father was a Baptist minister and the family moved frequently across Canada. She was tragically orphaned in her teens, losing her mother to cancer and her father soon after in an airplane crash. Harris graduated from McMaster University in 1959 with an Honours BA in English, and began graduate studies at University of Toronto, studying with Northrop Frye.

She married musician and TV producer Barry Harris with whom she had two children, Christopher and Jennifer. After separating from Harris, she met fellow writer Jack Batten, to whom she has been married since 1968. The couple still reside in the Toronto Annex home in which they raised her children and Batten’s son and daughter, Brad and Sarah.

In the early 1960s Harris worked for Toronto art dealer Dorothy Cameron which led to a position as modern-living editor and writer at Maclean’s magazine. Well into the1980s, Harris continued as a freelancer, writing on a wide range of topics for nearly every major Canadian magazine. In the early 1970s Harris was also a writer, producer, and commentator for CBC Radio on such shows as “Gerussi,” “This Country in the Morning,” and “Ideas”. In addition, she wrote and co-authored numerous general interest books in the 1970s and 1980s.

What Harris describes as her “epiphany” occurred in 1988 when she combined her writing talents and passion for gardening to create The Canadian Gardener. Published in 1990, it launched Harris into a new career, and was the first of nearly 20 gardening monographs she has written. Recognition for her expertise led to gardening columns in Chatelaine and The Globe & Mail, and to editorship roles with Toronto Life Gardens and Gardening Life. She continues to be much sought-after for speaking engagements, public appearances, and garden tours, and is a regular garden commentator on television and radio programs and online forums.

HMS Carnarvon

  • RC0544
  • Corporate body
  • 1905-1921

H.M.S. Carnarvon was a Devonshire-class cruiser of 10,850 tons built for the Royal Navy in 1905. She served in various capacities prior to the start of the First World War, where she was assigned to Cape Verde Station to protect British ships. In October 1914, the Carnarvon was transferred to the South Atlantic where she was part of the Battle of the Falklands, December 1914. Throughout the rest of the war she continued to patrol against German raiders and escort convoys. In 1919, it became a training ship, before being sold for scrap in 1921.

Cookridge, E. H.

  • RC0033
  • Person
  • 1908-1979

E. H. Cookridge was born Edward Spiro on 8 May 1908 in Vienna, the son of Paul and Rosa Cookridge Spiro. He was educated at the Universities of Vienna, Lausanne, and London. He worked as a foreign correspondent and editor for various British and American newspapers and later became a broadcaster both on the British Broadcasting Corporation and the American Broadcasting Company. As a correspondent he wrote under a number of pseudonyms including: Peter Leighton, Peter Morland, Ronald Reckitt, and Edward H. Spire. From 1939 to 1945 he served in Intelligence for the British Army. His first book was Secrets of the British Secret Service (1948). He was a prolific author, one of his most popular books being The Third Man: The Truth about Kim Philby (1968). Cookridge died in 1979.

Jenoff, Marvyne

  • RC0193
  • Person
  • 1942-

Born in Winnipeg on 10 March, 1942, Marvyne Jenoff graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1964. She also studied at the Bezalel Academy of Art in Jerusalem and the Sheridan College School of Design. She taught English as a second language from 1960 to 1996.

Her books include No Lingering Peace (1972), Hollandsong (1975), New Poet's Handbook (1984), The Orphan and the Stranger (1985), and The Emperor's Body (1995). She was the Fiction Editor of Waves from 1980 to 1985 and was a regular contributor to Montage, a MENSA newsletter from 1995 to 1998. Her poems and fiction have appeared in a variety of Canadian magazines.

D'Alfonso, Antonio

  • RC0144
  • Person
  • 1953-

Antonio D'Alfonso was born in Montreal in 1953. He attended English and French schools and studied at Loyola College where he earned a B.A. in Communication Arts in 1975. He completed an M.Sc. in Communications Studies from Université de Montréal.

In1978 he founded Guernica Editions, where he edited 450 books by authors from around the world. The company is dedicated to the bridging of cultures in Canada and publishes both original works and translations in three languages: English, French, and Italian. In 1982 in collaboration with three writers he founded the trilingual magazine Vice Versa and in 1986 they founded the Association of Italian-Canadian writers. As an author himself, he has published over 20 books in French and English. He has won the Trillium Award for his novel, Un vendredi du mois d'août in 2005. He is also an independent filmmaker and scriptwriter. In 2010 his film Bruco won the Best Foreign Film and Best International Director of a Feature Film at the New York International Film and Video Festival (Los Angeles). He has lived in Mexico City, Rome and Toronto. He has taught at University of Toronto and University of California, San Diego and presently teaches film in the French Department at McGill University.

Rodd, Rennell

  • RC0763
  • Person
  • 1858-1941

James Rennell Rodd, diplomat and author, was born in London on 9 November 1858 and educated at Balliol College, Oxford. He served as British Ambassador in Rome, 1908-1919. Later, he was Conservative Member of Parliament for St. Marylebone, 1928-1932. He was created 1st Baron Rennell of Rodd in 1933.

He published 3 volumes of memoirs, Social and Diplomatic Memoirs (1922-1926) in addition to his poetry and prose.

Leary, Timothy Francis

  • RC0637
  • Person
  • 1920-1996

Timothy Leary was born 22 October 1920 in Springfield, Massachusetts. In the 1950s and 1960s he taught psychology at the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard University. He was a proponent of the drug culture in the 1960s and experimented with consciousness-altering drugs such as LSD.

A prolific author, he wrote an autobiography, Flashbacks (1983). He died on 31 May 1996.

Lewis, C. S.

  • RC0646
  • Person
  • 1898-1963

C.S. Lewis was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland on 29 November 1898 and educated at Oxford. He was a literary scholar, critic and novelist, fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, 1925-1954 and afterwards professor of Medieval and Renaissance English at Cambridge. In addition to scholarly works, he wrote popular religious and moral books such as The Problem of Pain (1940).

However, he is best known as an author of children's books — most notably the Chronicles of Narnia, the most popular of which is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950). He died at The Kilns, Headington Quarry, near Oxford on 22 November 1963.

Cro, Stelio

  • RC0161
  • Person
  • 1936-

Stelio Cro was born in Rome, Italy, on 7 April 1936. He was educated in Rome up to the junior high school years; he finished his secondary school at the Scuola Cristoforo Colombo, the Italian school run by the Italian Government in Argentina. In 1963 he obtained a Licenciatura en Letras at the Facultad de Filosofia y Letras of the University of Buenos Aires; in 1966 he obtained a Doctorate at the Facolta de Lingue e Letterature Straniere of the University of Venice, Italy.

After teaching at the University of Buenos Aires and at Florida State University, he joined McMaster University in 1972. He retired from the Department of Modern Languages in June of 1996, as Professor Emeritus. In 1995 he was awarded the McMaster Student Union Teaching Award for the Humanities. Cro is the author of nine books.

King, James

  • RC0004
  • Person
  • 1942-

James King was born in Springfield, Mass. on 14 June 1942. He received his M.A. in 1969 and Ph.D in 1970 from Princeton University. He was Assistant Professor of English at Loyola College, 1970-71, and from 1971-77 at McMaster University. He became Associate Professor of English at McMaster in 1977 and Professor of English in 1983. He was Chair of the McMaster Association for Eighteenth Century Studies from 1984-88.

He has been a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada since 1993. King has received several prestigious awards, including the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, 1980-81, and the Killam Research Fellow Award, 1988-90. His scholarly works have gained him the rank of University Professor. He is co-editor of The Letters and Prose Writings of William Cowper, (4 vols., 1979-86) and the author of many biographies. He is also a novelist.

Mansbridge, Albert

  • RC0236
  • Person
  • 1876-1952

Albert Mansbridge was born in Gloucester on 10 January 1876 and educated at the Battersea Grammar School. He founded the Workers' Educational Association in 1903 and remained First Secretary until 1915, extending its operations to Australia.

Until his death at Torquay on 22 August 1952, Mansbridge was associated with numerous socialist, co-operative, and church organizations, although education always remained his main interest. In his later years he was President of the World Association for Adult Education. His publications include An Adventure in Working Class Education (1920) and his autobiography, The Trodden Road (1940).

Bannerman, James

  • RC0289
  • Person
  • 1902-

James Bannerman is a pseudonym of John Charles Kirkpatrick McNaught, author, critic, and broadcaster. He was born on 23 March 1902 in Toronto, Ontario, and educated at Upper Canada College and the University of Toronto. He also used the following pseudonyms: George Austen, Mark Carter, Peter Davidson, Robert Elliott, Pierre Lousanne, and Lajos Dohanyi Lajos.

Bannerman is probably best known for his introduction to Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday radio broadcasts from the 1950s to 1970. He wrote many broadcast scripts and also contributed articles to Canadian Home Journal, Maclean's, Mademoiselle, Mayfair and other magazines.

Gervais, C.H. (Charles Henry)

  • RC0066
  • Person
  • 1946-

Charles Henry (Marty) Gervais was born in Windsor in 1946. He received a BA degree from the University of Guelph and later studied writing under Morley Callaghan at the University of Windsor, where he received an MA in Creative Writing. Gervais has undertaken many roles in the arts community. He established Black Moss Press in 1969, one of the earliest and most enduring literary publishers in Canada.

He was also an award-winning journalist with the Windsor Star, for 35 years, beginning his career in 1974 and retiring in 2008. He was a special correspondent, based in Iraq for three months in 2007. He continues to write "My Town" column on a freelance basis. His books, often concerned with the history of the Windsor area, including Baldoon (1976, a play written with James Reaney), The Rumrunners (1980), The Fighting Parson (1983), The Border Police (1992), and, more recently, Keeping with Tradition: The Working Man's Choir, Forty Years of Song with Il Coro Italiano (2002). His first published novel, Reno, appeared in 2005 from Mosaic Press. Another book, Taking My Blood, charting his time in a hospital, and including photographs he took while he was there, came out in 2005. In addition to being the author of 14 books of poetry (the most recent Wait for Me [2006]), he is the resident writing professional at the University of Windsor and managing editor of the Windsor Review. Gervais is also a trained photographer. His exhibition entitled "A Show of Hands: Boxing on the Border" documented the life of young boxers on the Canada-U.S border.

Smyth, Ethel

  • RC0651
  • Person
  • 1858-1944

Dame Ethel Smyth, composer, author, and feminist, was born on 23 April 1858 in Sidcup, England. She was educated at the Leipzig Conservatorium. As well as several operas and other musical pieces, she composed suffragette music, including The March of the Women.

She was the first woman to receive an honorary degree from Oxford University. She wrote several autobiographical works, beginning with <I>Impressions That Remained (1919) and ending with What Happened Next* (1940). She died in Woking, Surrey on 9 May 1944.

Angell, Sir Norman

  • RC0203
  • Person
  • 1874-1967

Norman Angell, author, was born in the Mansion House, Holbeach, on 26 December 1872 and educated at Geneva University. Rather than going on to Cambridge, at age seventeen, he left for the United States, supporting himself by manual labour. He later became a journalist, working in San Francisco, before returning to Europe. From 1904 to 1912 he was the Paris editor of The Daily Mail. His 1910 influential book The Great Illusion, on the prevention of war, was very widely read and discussed.

He was one of the founding members of the Union of Democratic Control. From 1929 to 1931 he served as Labour Member of Parliament for North Bradford. He was knighted in 1931 and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1933. He died in Croydon on 7 October 1967.

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